Title Name

Environment Change

Problem Scenario

To see what kind of soil does a cricket prefer to live in over a period of one week.

Broad Question
What type of environment does a Cricket like best?

Specific Question

What type of soil does a male or female cricket prefer the most to live in? (Sandy, rocky, dirty, clean, etc)

Hypothesis

I think they rather live in an dry plant soil because that is there normal habitat for living. Crickets tend to live in soft dry soil, rather then rockey dirty soil.

Graph of Hypothesis

Variables

Independent Variable: Soil type.

Dependent Variable: Crickets time spent on the different types of soil.

Variables That Need To Be Controlled:

Crickets. (Female or Male)
Soil type (Wet, rocks in it, dry, etc

Vocabulary List That Needs Explanation

Dividers: Something that divids something so i may not get in, or could.

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General Plan

Buy 24 crickets
Get 4 different kinds of soil
Find a huge thing to put crickets and soil in (A crate or box)
Place crickets inside for one week, each day do a minute by minute of how many are in each soil for ten minutes.
Wait to see what soil has more crickets on it, which tells you what kind they like more.

Potential Problems And Solutions

Crickets may get out, I can buy more crickets if I lose them.
Crickets may die, I can also get more crickets.

Safety Or Environmental Concerns

Crickets may come out of the container. Solution: Cover tightly.

Experimental Design

(add the correct headings from the experimental design page before beginning)

Resources and Budget Table

Item	Number needed	Where I will get this	Cost
Crickets	24	Pet store	2.50
Soil	4	Plant store	20.00
Crate/Box	1	Mr.Groves	0
Cricket Food	1	Mr. Groves	0

Detailed Procedure

1. Buy any amount of crickets, preferably more than 10
2. Buy or find in backyard 4 differnt kinds of soil.
3. Get a crate (Like a turtle or lizard terrnuims)
4. Make or buy spaces but leave an opening in the center of each one so they can move in between soils
5. Place crickets in crate (In center of it)
6. Get a stop watch and make a data table. It should name the differnt soils, amount of crickets and how long you were testing it on for.
7. Start the stop watch and do a minute by minute progress report on how many are in each enviroment for ten minutes each day.
8. Reapet for one week, or a the minuim 5 days.

Photo List

cardboard dividers.

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Data Table

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Results

The plant soil was the overall perfrered by the crickets over the period of a week.
But if I were to do it with differnt varibles it would be the cardboard dividers.

day 1 Soil: 18/30
Day 2 Soil: 23/30
Day 3 soil: 26/30

Conclusion:

It didn't go the way I thought it would at all. In the end of doing the project and putting the data together I could clearly see that I couldn't really say they liked one soil over the other, because more the 75% of the exmerinment they were on the carboard dividers instead of being on the soil types. If I was to do on the soil then it would seem they liked the colored rocks better. I thought they would like the plant soil better just because that is USAULLY there normal habitait. But in this case it seems they enjoyed the rocks better.

Also, They didn't climb the sides (made out of glass) They just climbed up the carboard. The reason is unknown throughout the experiment, perhaps the carboard was easier to climb up rather then the smooth glass, another reason is they might have liked being higher up. Maybe even because if they were higher up they could exscape the next time I opened up the top.

Discussion

Overall I noticed they don't really like the soils, it was the cardboard in the end. Which was not one of my varibles or part of the project but it was the results.
More the 75% of them climbed up the cardboard dividers and stayed there instead of going on the soils. That was very surprising but if I was basing it off the soils it would have to be the plant soil, which was in my hypothiss.

Benefit to Community and/or Science

This project can benefit the sicence more rather then commuity in most cases because we might want to find out more about where to find them. There is not huge reason why we might NEED to use this project but you could use this as a refernce to see where you might be most likely to find them. But why would you want too? That might be the community part, for pet stores or a at home thing since they feed lizards crickets.

Background Research

Cricket envimonets vary from soft soil to rocky. There are over 900 speices of crickets, some big, some small.
It turns out that I had a good guess. One of there mose habitaited environments IS the soft plant soil. But they like to live in the rocky so they can hide from other speices.
There are even "flying" crickets!

References

Abstract

To find out/Test what enivernment a cricket rather habitat in out of the three most basic soils.
The point of this is to simplely see where you would most likeky find a cricket located on/in.